by Webb, Holly
Rose lay on the itchy rug in the study, leaning on her elbows, and staring at the book propped up in front of her. It was a most unladylike position, and Miss Bridges would not have approved at all, but it had been a very long evening, and she was tired. She eased her elbows off the rug a moment, hissing as the blood flowed back into the woven pattern imprinted on her skin. Her nose itched with all the strange prickly dust floating in the air, and she had the infuriating feeling of being about to sneeze.
She stifled a yawn behind her hand, and tried to focus on the page again.
The fashions of the Venetian nobility are varied, and often quite distinct from those of the other European cities. Much use is made of luxurious fabrics, such as velvet, silk and fur. But the greatest difference in the appearance of the Venetian noble lady is of course her mask.
Rose’s heart gave a sudden little thud as the word leaped out at her.
Many Venetians do not ever remove these strange accessories, or at least not in polite company, having an antiquated and superstitious belief that the masks are somehow part of their soul.
The most elaborate outfits are saved for the masked ball held on the first Sunday of the year at the Palace of the Duke, when the nobility gather to dance, and to participate in strange rituals…
Rose uttered a curse she had learned from Bill, and hit the page, and then coughed as a cloud of dust flew into her face. She didn’t want to know about the fancy dress! What were these strange rituals?
‘What is it?’ Gus sprang down from the windowsill and brushed himself against her cheek. He lowered his head so that his whiskers skimmed the page, as if they could suck the words in themselves. ‘Hmf. Antiquated and superstitious almost certainly means true, I should say. How can the masks be part of their soul?’ he demanded, as Rose took the book to Mr Fountain.
The magician frowned over the book, flicking feverishly through the pages to find another mention. ‘As described in Signor Fiori’s odd little book… Fiori, of course! Flowers! I knew I had it right!’
Freddie and Rose stared at him, looking confused, and Mr Fountain clicked his fingers irritably. ‘Flowers in Italian – fiori. Remind me to engage a tutor in the modern languages as well. That’s the book. And as Gus said, odd, but almost certainly true. Faded maroon leather, Freddie, about the size of my hand. Well, find it, boy! Go!’
It was easy for Mr Fountain to say it, but simply knowing what the book looked like didn’t actually help. Except that now they also knew that it was tiny, and might have been pushed to the back of a shelf.
*
‘Perhaps you’ve lent it to someone, sir?’ Freddie asked wearily, as he shoved the last book back into its place. ‘It isn’t here.’
‘I’d remember, I’m sure,’ Mr Fountain muttered, massaging his temples with his fingers and scowling. ‘Where is the dratted thing?’
‘You’ll have to go back to scrying.’ Gus swiped a paw over one of his ears with a triumphant air. Then he gave a little sniggery purr. ‘Perhaps you could scry for the book.’
‘Oh, out, all of you!’ Mr Fountain snapped, hurling a book at Gus – or at least close enough to make it look like he wanted it to hit the white cat. Gus jumped gracefully from the windowsill, and the book slid, spine sagging, down the glass.
As Rose looked back, the master was picking it up, stroking it tenderly, and the pages were sealing themselves back together. He laid it on the tallest pile, and sank back in the chair, staring out at the darkness again.
Even though Rose knew the mask was still missing, and they had no idea where Gossamer and Venn had got to, and that the master was fretting away in his study, she couldn’t help singing to herself as she dusted the rooms, and blackleaded the drawing-room grate. The whole house seemed to have been infected with Christmas, as though the garlands of greenery all the way up the banisters had brought it with them. It was an entirely new feeling for Rose. It wafted through her every time she caught her reflection in the gleaming leaves, or sniffed the exotic spices that Mrs Jones had been mixing into the mincemeat. It was Christmas Eve, already!
Christmas at St Bridget’s orphanage had depended entirely on the generosity of benefactors, and they tended to give bales of cotton for new pinafores, instead of Christmas pudding and goose. The Christmas Rose remembered with intense pleasure had been the one where an eccentric old lady, who worshipped at the church the little orphans marched to in crocodile every Sunday, had given Miss Lockwood an enormous reel of maroon velvet ribbon. She had said it would be nice for the dear children to have hair ribbons for Christmas. There was enough for each of them to have a large bow, she had suggested, and it was clear that she expected to see the girls wearing it at the Christmas service.
It was lucky that there happened not to have been an outbreak of lice for quite a while, and most of the orphans had enough hair for a ribbon to be attached to. Miss Lockwood had gone about muttering about ridiculous luxuries, and how it would have been better to have had the money, but the orphans had walked to church preening. Rose had treasured that ribbon until it finally fell apart.
Christmases at the Fountain house, it was becoming very clear, were an entirely different kettle of fish, or perhaps oven of goose. The geese were in the chill marble-floored larder, hanging up most pathetically by their ugly yellow feet. The puddings had been made with great ceremony a few weeks before. Bella and Freddie had even been invited – although suspiciously – down to the kitchen to stir the mixture, and cast in sixpences, and a scattering of tiny porcelain dolls.
The grocer’s shop that Rose was sent to so often had been full of Christmas goods for weeks. Boxes of dates were piled high on the counter, and there had been so many interesting additions to the jars of sweets that Bill took a good ten minutes longer than usual to finish his errands.
Rose didn’t complain, for she took as long as he did, staring at the centrepiece of the sweet counter, which the grocer’s daughter told them proudly had been sent for all the way from Bohemia. ‘Which is a dreadful long way. Near to Russia, and the Americas, you know. It came by ship, all wrapped in tissue.’
Rose had seen gingerbread before, of course, and Bill had even bought her a gilded piece when they went to the Frost Fair. It was wrapped up with the handbill she’d had printed, in a little box under her bed. But she had never seen gingerbread like this – sheets of it, shaped and curlicued, and stuck with melted sugar into the shape of a little house, with a fence and a path of pink boiled sweets. Rose wanted to live in it. She could imagine tapping her way up that pink sugar path, to sleep in a gingery-scented, spun-sugar bed. She had chattered so much about the house to Mrs Jones that the cook had put on her best bonnet and been to the grocer’s to inspect it, and had come home and sat staring at her favourite jelly moulds with an almost jaded expression.
Rose was giddy with excitement. She knew that Bella had even bought her a present, for the little girl had dragged her governess out shopping, and brought her back in a hansom cab, fainting, and whimpering about Bella terrorising toy shops. Since then, every time she had swept Bella’s room, Bella had hovered around anxiously, and kept moving a small parcel from place to place in a manner that was meant to be secretive, and humming in an irritating carefree sort of way. Bella herself had written an immensely long list, and presented it to her father with the look of someone who did not intend to be disappointed.
Rose had made Bella a needlebook. She didn’t think that Bella would ever use it – her sampler had been in her workbasket in the schoolroom with a rusting needle stuck into the letter ‘F’ ever since Rose had come to work in the house – but it was something, at least. She had embroidered handkerchiefs for Freddie and Bill, and, rather daringly, one for Mr Fountain as well, with his initials fetchingly intertwined. She had just put Bill on Bill’s since, like her, he didn’t have a last name, and only the ‘B’ seemed a little stingy. She should probably have put William, but it was ever such a lot longer, and she’d had the needlebooks to make for Miss Bella and Miss B
ridges and Sarah. She’d bought Mrs Jones a quarter of chocolate satins from the grocer’s and a doily to wrap them in, as the cook had said once how much she liked them. Rose had sat each night, gloating over her little store of presents, and remembering those awful weeks when the other servants had tried to pretend she didn’t exist. It felt like a lifetime ago.
She had bought another doily too, to give to Susan. It felt churlish not to, and she had been well educated in Christian charity and forgiveness by the orphanage. Besides, they were only a ha’penny each.
Rose woke at her usual time on Christmas morning, but only because Gus clawed her. He had taken to sleeping on her bed, but Rose suspected it was out of affection for a warm body, not for her.
She lay shivering, clutching at the odd strands of the dream she had been having. A mask… The mask? She wasn’t sure, only that it was white, and cold-looking, and horribly like the dead geese hanging in the cold room.
‘Wake up!’ Gus hissed in her ear. ‘Time to go and light the fires!’
Rose groaned. ‘Don’t sound so happy. I know you’re going to crawl back under my blankets as soon as my back’s turned.’
‘Of course I am!’ Gus’s orange and blue eyes were round with surprise. ‘Why would I do anything else? Merry Christmas, Rose dear. Blow the candle out when you go, please. And tell Mrs Jones I would like a sardine with my cream for breakfast, since it’s Christmas.’ He gave a mocking yawn, winked at her, and burrowed back into her bed, leaving just a wisp of white tail showing.
Rose dressed hurriedly, huddling into the petticoats that she’d draped over her counterpane the previous night – there was no point in wasting extra covers.
‘Don’t forget the sardine!’ a muffled voice mewled after her as she headed out of the room.
Rose clattered down the uncarpeted stairs, feeling distinctly unseasonal. The dream hadn’t helped. She fetched her firelighting box from the kitchen – which was empty, though she could hear Mrs Jones and Sarah fussing in the larder, probably fetching the geese – and tramped back up the stairs to light Bella’s fire. She was leaped upon as soon as she opened the door by a tiny devil in a pink lace-trimmed nightgown. ‘Rose! I have a present for you!’ Bella sang excitedly.
Rose gazed at her in bewilderment. She had known that Bella was excited about Christmas, and giving presents, but she hadn’t expected her to be like this.
‘Open it, open it!’ Bella thrust a prettily wrapped parcel into her hands, and jumped about while she untied the ribbons. Inside was a china doll, the size for a doll’s house, dressed in a neat sprigged cotton dress, white apron, and a cap. It held a tiny sweeping brush, which was tied onto its wrist with a ribbon. It even had middling-brown hair, like Rose.
Rose had never owned a doll. She almost didn’t know what to do with one, although Princess Jane had forced her to play with the enormous doll’s house that took up most of one wall of the princesses’ drawing room.
‘Do you like it? Do you like it?’ Bella couldn’t stop giggling.
‘Yes, miss.’ Rose stroked the china features admiringly, smiling at the little rosebud mouth.
‘It’s going to be very useful!’ Bella said, and she collapsed into giggles again. Rose shook her head. ‘Hold her for me, Miss Bella, while I light the fire, won’t you? She’s too clean to be real, you know,’ she added, smiling. ‘I don’t want coal dust on her.’
Rose kept the little doll tucked in her apron pocket, as she dashed about the kitchen that morning, and every so often she put her hand in to stroke the pretty cotton dress.
Mrs Jones was sleeping in her chair in the corner of the kitchen, recovering from sending up the most lavish meal that Rose had ever seen – most of which, she had been promised by Bill, would be coming back downstairs for the servants to eat – and Rose was admiring the little doll again, when there was a volley of shouting heard at the gate at the top of the rear steps. Two boys were standing there with a donkey cart, neatly painted with The London Toy Emporium.
‘Delivery!’ one of the boys bawled, when he saw Rose peering up at him.
‘Run up and let them in the front door, Rose,’ Mrs Jones said, straightening her cap and sighing. ‘It’ll be something else for Miss Bella, or that Freddie. Spoilt to bits, those children…’
But when Rose opened the front door, the boys staggered up the steps with an enormous parcel wrapped in sacking, and handed her an envelope. It was inscribed in delicate black ink: Rose.
‘Oh, it’s come, it’s come!’ Bella ran out of the dining room, in her best Talish lace dress, curls flying. ‘Open it, Rose!’
So there, in the middle of the black-and-white tiled hallway, Rose undid the wrappings, and found her Christmas present from Princess Jane.
Her very own doll’s house.
My dearest Rose,
Papa assures me that a suitable recompense will be found for your unusual service. And of course, it is the duty of any loyal subject to serve me in any way I should require. However, I wished to send you a token of my appreciation more personal than ten gold sovereigns and a framed picture of myself, which I imagine is what Papa’s secretary is planning. I have conversed with Isabella upon this subject, and we felt that since you enjoyed playing with my doll’s house so much, and since it played such an important role in the whole affair, it would be appropriate to send you one of your own.
With my most sincere wishes for the festive season,
Jane (Princess)
Rose sat back on her heels and stared. The doll’s house was huge. Not by the standards of Princess Jane’s, of course, but still. It was painted pale blue, but otherwise it looked rather like Mr Fountain’s house – tall, with long windows that had little iron balconies, and steps up to the front door. And so it should, Rose thought, a bubble of laughter rising in her throat, as she had a doll version of herself to clean it.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ Bella asked, kneeling on the floor next to her. ‘I chose it, you know. Jane made them send her a catalogue, but she sent me to the shop to make sure it was the right one. I chose my present at the same time, to go with it.’
‘Whatever will you do with it, Rose?’ Miss Bridges said disapprovingly.
Rose looked up at her worriedly. She hadn’t thought of that. It couldn’t possibly go in her bedroom – there wasn’t room for Rose if she’d eaten too large a dinner, let alone a doll’s house.
‘Perhaps Miss Bella would let me keep it in the schoolroom?’ she suggested, feeling guilty, although it wasn’t her fault.
‘No, no, it’s yours!’ Bella protested. ‘Though I would love to play with it. It’s ever so much bigger than mine…’ she sighed.
‘Put it in the workroom. On the window seat, perhaps.’ Mr Fountain had given up waiting for his family to rejoin Christmas dinner, and was gazing at the house, shaking his head in amusement.
‘Honestly.’ Miss Bridges’ lips were pursed. ‘The most thoughtless gift. What do they think the child is, to give her such an expensive bauble?’
Rose couldn’t explain. Miss Bridges was quite right, of course. The doll’s house probably had cost the most enormous amount of money, and she certainly didn’t have the time to play with it. But it was beautiful, and grand, and silly, and she adored it.
*
When Christmas dinner, and its encore in the kitchen, had finally been cleared away, Rose was allowed to run upstairs to admire her treasure. She found Freddie and Bella there too, eager to see inside the house. She was quite surprised that Bella had restrained herself from opening it, but she had clearly been admiring her present from her father: a most elegant, and enormous, doll. It had come dressed in a fur-trimmed evening cloak, complete with miniature opera glasses, and the rest of the outfit packed in a japanned travelling trunk.
‘What on earth are you going to do with that thing?’ Freddie asked, rather disgustedly, as Rose undid the hooks that let the front of the house swing open.
‘She’ll play with it, of course!’ Bella told him sharply, indigna
nt at criticism of the present she had helped to provide.
‘Rose is too old to play, and when does she ever have the time?’ Freddie argued.
But Rose wasn’t listening. She was sitting in front of the house, stroking the Rose-doll, and admiring the tiny intricacies of the house. Plaster food, on delicate little plates. A painted fire, above small jewels of glinting coal. The little blonde girl in the nursery, with a proud expression so like Bella’s.
‘I think,’ Gus said, appearing suddenly, and apparently out of the curtains, making Rose yelp, ‘that she should use it. Usefully.’ He settled on the roof of the house, leaning down to peer inside, and batting at the furnishings with one curious paw that set the nursery cradle rocking.
‘What do you mean?’ Rose asked, her voice suspicious, and her fingers clenched into her palms to stop herself shooing him away.
Gus’s whiskers trailed a flare of silvery light over the doll’s house furniture, sending sparkles skating over the tiny polished dining table. ‘Practise with it. Spells. Scrying. It’s like a little world – you can start small and build up.’
Rose nodded slowly, staring at her beautiful toy. It didn’t fit into the workroom. Especially when there was an enormous white cat perched on it, although he did match the delicate balustrade along the roof rather nicely. It should be in a rich little girl’s pretty bedroom, Rose admitted to herself, with a breath of a sigh. It shouldn’t belong to someone like her.
All the same…
Bella came to stroke the silk drawing-room curtains. ‘Don’t you remember telling me about a doll you saw once, a clockwork doll that talked? And you hoped it was magic, because you’d never really seen any?’
Rose nodded. She’d admitted it to Bella while they were talking about Bella’s own magic, which was starting to show in her now. Rose had seen her grow claws, and she’d lent her power to Rose’s glamour at the palace. But she was trying not to let on, in case her father found her a governess who would be more of a force to be reckoned with than the feeble Miss Anstruther. Bella liked being able to run circles round her governess, and she said she knew quite enough French verbs already.